And great Orion; and a little to the
north-east the big Dipper, standing on end.
_Feb. 20_.--A solitary and pleasant sundown hour at the pond,
exercising arms, chest, my whole body, by a tough oak sapling thick as
my wrist, twelve feet high--pulling and pushing, inspiring the good
air. After I wrestle with the tree awhile, I can feel its young sap
and virtue welling up out of the ground and tingling through me from
crown to toe, like health's wine. Then for addition and variety I
launch forth in my vocalism; shout declamatory pieces, sentiments,
sorrow, anger, &c., from the stock poets or plays--or inflate my lungs
and sing the wild tunes and refrains I heard of the blacks down south,
or patriotic songs I learn'd in the army. I make the echoes ring, I
tell you! As the twilight fell, in a pause of these ebullitions, an
owl somewhere the other side of the creek sounded _too-oo-oo-oo-oo_,
soft and pensive (and I fancied a little sarcastic) repeated four or
five times. Either to applaud the negro songs--or perhaps an ironical
comment on the sorrow, anger, or style of the stock poets.
ONE OF THE HUMAN KINKS
How is it that in all the serenity and lonesomeness of solitude, away
off here amid the hush of the forest, alone, or as I have found in
prairie wilds, or mountain stillness, one is never entirely without
the instinct of looking around, (I never am, and others tell me the
same of themselves, confidentially,) for somebody to appear, or
start up out of the earth, or from behind some tree or rock? Is it a
lingering, inherited remains of man's primitive wariness, from the
wild animals? or from his savage ancestry far back? It is not at all
nervousness or fear.
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